This Retiree's Leisurely Side Hustle Makes $66,000 a Year and, 'You Don't Even Need to Go to High School to Do It' Barbara Hill wanted a flexible, part-time job that would transition well into retirement. Now she mentors younger people who are making over $200,000 a year. Here's her insider's guide to getting started.
By Frances Dodds Edited by Mark Klekas
Six years ago, at her home in Morristown, New Jersey, Barbara Hill's side hustle spirit animal walked through her front door. "She was absolutely ancient," Hill recalls. "I was like 61 or 62, but this woman was almost a hundred or something. It was clearly a retirement job for her."
Back then, Hill had a big job selling web-based video conferencing, and wasn't planning to retire anytime soon. She'd taken out a home equity loan on her house, and the bank had sent a loan signing agent to her home to walk her through the paperwork. That was the ancient lady. "It just struck a chord with me," Hill says. "I asked her a million questions. It turned out she was doing this to supplement her social security."
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As Hill soon learned, loan signing agents are notary publics who guide people through the process of signing paperwork for real estate transactions like selling and buying homes, refinancing, reverse mortgages, VA and FHA loans, and so on. Depending on your state, they're contracted by title companies, law firms or signing services. Loan signing agents show up with the paperwork and tell you where to sign. Less experienced agents may make between $50 and $75 per signing, and more experienced agents can make anywhere from $100 to $250 per signing. And pretty much anyone is eligible. "You don't even need to go to high school to do it," Hill says. After doing her research, she took some online training courses, and began doing the occasional signing.
But less than a year later, Hill's division at her full-time job was eliminated, and she was laid off. "I didn't panic," she says. "But I was not going to put myself in the position of going on interviews to sell software at 62 years old."
So loan signing became her main hustle, and she's never looked back. Her income each month varies from $2,000 to $6,000, depending on how many jobs she takes, but all told, she's making about $66,000 a year.
She's built a whole community of other loan signing agents and mentors. "I have a friend in Idaho who started around the same time I did," Hill said. "She's young and doesn't need the flexibility, so she works from early in the morning to late at night and drives all over the state. Last year I think she made $230,000."
Here's Hill's guide for anyone looking to get in the game.
Step 1: Get commissioned by your state as a notary public.
A notary public is a civil servant whose signature is needed on everything from estate planning documents to custody agreements — like giving permission from one spouse to another to travel outside the country with their child. But for most civil work, there are set fees that are pretty low. But with real estate transactions executed by private companies there's more money, and that's where loan signing agents come in.
To get commissioned as a notary, you'll go to your state's Department of Revenue website. "They'll tell you how to become a notary and fill out the forms. In my state, you select who you want to sponsor you from a drop-down menu. They don't really even know you, as far as I know. They're the person in government who signs off on you becoming a notary."
Step 2: Teach yourself the basics.
"The next thing is, you need to know how to close a signing package, and what documents are included in the signing," Hill says. "I came across this guy Mark Willis on YouTube who has a course called the Loan Signing System. At this point I've done quite a few trainings, and I can tell you that one really has it all. It's like a blueprint to becoming a loan signing agent, and it told me, step by step, everything I needed to do and when I needed to do it. It taught me all about the documents. It told me what kind of equipment and supplies I needed, and when and where to get work."
Step 3: Build your resume with starter jobs.
It varies by state, but generally, Hill says there are three basic ways to get loan signing work. You can find jobs on online notary databases, work with signing services, or you can build a relationship with title companies so they hire you directly.
Online notary databases are a good place to find starter jobs and are also the most flexible option. "I got my first job with no experience on an online notary database." Hill says. To create your profile on one of these databases, there are certain requirements like your commission, errors and omissions insurance, and a background check. "It behooves you to have the National Notary Association Certification, and if you pass that exam, they give you a listing on signingagent.com," Hill says. "When I mentor people, I tell them that's the foundation they'll build all their other database profiles from."
The reason database jobs pay less is that everyone needs to take a cut. "The title companies or law firms or whoever is looking for a notary go through these platforms, and they have their fees, and then the signing service they hired to help them has their fees," Hill says. "There could be two or three middlemen so by the time it gets to you, you're often seeing orders under $100."
The positive side of these jobs, however, is that you can pick them up at the last minute, and databases don't care how often you do or don't pick up a job. You're not answering to anyone.
Step 4: Get better-paying jobs.
The next tier of jobs — what Hill calls "mid-range pay" — are working with signing services. "A signing service is a company where somebody probably was a loan signing agent and they had so much direct business from title companies that they decided to farm out the work," Hill explains. "This has become an industry in and of itself. So the signing service gets the fee that you would have gotten directly, say $200, and they'll pay you somewhere between $75 and $125, depending on the kind of signing. This gives you more flexibility because they don't expect you to be available for every single signing the way a title company does."
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And finally, the highest paying jobs — or the "brass ring," as Hill calls it — are those that you get by working directly with title companies. "You can make the most money with these jobs, like $150 to $250 per closing, and you don't have to print out documents," she says. "Generally, you pick them up from the title company, and they often give you checks right then and there."
The thing that makes this type of work less appealing to some, Hill says, is that there's not much flexibility. In order to keep the title companies happy, you have to be available when they need you. "You have a business relationship with them, and they count on you," Hill says. "If you say no two or three times, that's it, they're going to move on. So I have my handful of title companies, but I balance it. Some of my friends who treat loan signing like their 9-to-5 can make $100,000 a year basically working full-time for these companies, doing two to three signings a day."
Ultimately, Hill says that loan singing has been just the job she was looking for at this moment in life. It's given her the flexibility to care for her mother, and take her nieces and nephews — and now her great-niece! — to Broadway shows whenever she wants. "You can do this job as much or little as you want," she says. "That's the beauty of it."
